Analysis of the impact of climate change on the distribution and active compound content of the plateau medicinal plant Nardostachys jatamansi (D. Don) DC

The production and accumulation of secondary metabolites of medicinal plants are regulated by environmental factors. Analyzing the effects of climate change on the suitable habitats and active compound of Nardostachys jatamansi (D. Don) DC. is essential for their future conservation and cultivation. This study predicted changes in the scale of distribution of N. jatamansi under different Shared Socio-economic Pathway (SSP) scenario models over time. In addition, this study analyzed differences in active compound content by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods and changes in gene expression by transcriptome sequencing across different habitats. The results reveal that elevation, mean temperature of coldest quarter, and precipitation of warmest quarter cumulatively contributed 90.1% to the species distribution models (SDMs), and were the critical environmental variables affecting the distribution of N. jatamansi. The SDMs predicted that N. jatamansi habitats will decrease in the future. Under the SSP5–8.5 scenario, highly suitable areas in China for N. jatamansi growth will decrease to 7.734375 × 104 km2 by the 2061–2080 s period. This study also observed that the contents of active compounds increased with ecological suitability, with the nardosinone content in N. jatamansi reaching 0.67% in highly suitable areas. Analysis of differential gene expression in N. jatamansi indicated that the expression levels of genes in the terpene synthesis pathway genes were significantly different across grades of suitable areas. Together, the combined results of SDMs analysis, chemical analysis, and transcriptome analysis in N. jatamansi reveal that environmental changes affect the expression levels of genes related to terpene gene synthesis pathways, thereby changing the contents of active compounds. Overall, these findings provide a reference for the conservation of wild resources of N. jatamansi and the improvement of the quality of cultivated N. jatamansi.